


The future is a foreign shore

by Fatale (femme)



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale





	The future is a foreign shore

The future is a foreign shore  
Neal/Sara  
PG  
WC: 720  
Spoilers: References 4x16  
A/N: The Sara/Neal-ness was epic in 4x16, but it didn't feel like enough, did it? Kind of like the writers wanted this to be HUGE, then got distracted writing the rest of the episode and said, "Oh wells!"

 

 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

Neal has always loved Roman arches, Gothic vaults and buttresses, art that’s permanent, that he’s incapable of stealing or hiding away. The structures will be there long after he’s gone, silently watching over their cities, and he can’t help but find that soothing in a way.

Perhaps his problems, and all his mistakes, are small things in the grand scheme of the world.

He thinks of failure, of Peter, of El, of Kate (though not as much as he used to, maybe not as much as he should).

Neal’s afraid to find his father, he’s afraid to visit Peter, he’s afraid to look El in the eyes, and see the unasked question there, _What have you done?_

He’s afraid, he’s afraid.

 

*

 

Neal dreams of foreign Cathedrals and Abbeys, all the places he has been to alone. Clear as a photograph, he can see Barcelona, the Cathedral of the Sea, and he feels the foundations shake, everything he has ever had tumbling out of his grasp.

When he closes his eyes, he sees red, like blood and rage, unfamiliar and ugly.

When he awakens, red makes him think of Sara, of her strawberry hair, of her skin, white and smooth.

It’s a different kind of loss, but it aches just the same.

 

*

 

She walks in, heels clicking on the hardwood, her face screwed up in quiet sadness, resignation. Sara left ostensibly for a job, but they both knew the real reason was to get away from him, the constant push-pull of their relationship, the way they wanted to own the other, but each incapable of belonging to someone else.

Neal would laugh if it wasn’t kind of sad.

She shrugs helplessly, small shoulders upsetting the lines of her perfect silk dress. “I wanted - _want_ \- to leave,” she says.

Neal has never heard her sound so unsure of herself and it aches down to his bones, makes his teeth hurt and his eyes burn. Honesty is nearly impossible between people like them.

He wonders if he’s ruined her.

He wonders if she’s ruined him.

“Did you,” she says, her voice coming out in small halting breaths, “did you really mean any of it? The proposal?”

He meant _all_ of it, but that’s only because she was leaving and he had nothing to lose.

“What are we doing?” he asks, all of the sudden tired even though he’s done little but sleep since the whole Pratt mess. He’s too fucking exhausted for games, coyness or misdirection now. He's wrung-out and pulled tight, he just needs - he just _needs_. “Sara, Sara. What are we _doing_?”

Peter arrested for murder, his father, _god_. He had a plan and a life trajectory and it’s all gone to shit.

“I - I have no goddamn clue, Neal.”

Sara’s careful makeup is ruined, black eyeliner sliding down her cheeks, eyes blotchy and red - so flawed - and Neal thinks she’s never looked lovelier.

People forget that before the arch was considered only beautiful, it was a miracle of science, a feat of engineering, opposing forces from every direction which held it together. It wasn’t that the forces were new, it was just that the Romans had figured out how to use them to their advantage.

He opens his arms to her.

 

*

 

Maybe this is how it’ll happen: Sara will give up her need to control the future and Neal will give up the fear he’s been nursing for so long and they’ll fight and snipe at each other before tumbling breathlessly into bed. All their tomorrows will be alight with promises, if they have the courage to want them.

And then they’ll hold onto each other through the night while the world re-shapes itself into something more bearable in the morning.

 

*

 

She comes to him, slips into his arms as easily as if she'd never left. Their mouths slide together, dry and warm; he cups the back of her neck carefully. Possibilities made of glass, this is only one path he sees among many.

Her kisses taste watery, salty, beneath his mouth.

Neal feels their shared history crumbling beneath his feet and blowing away, rewriting itself, as her slim, pale fingers trail down his chest. He pulls away for just a moment and says to her, “I had a dream about cathedrals falling into the ocean.”

 

 

The end.

 


End file.
